


Burn, Burn Out, Come Back Again (This Is Just The Beginning)

by Autophile



Series: Of Course It Hurts [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Always a girl Danny Fenton, Gen, How Do I Tag, If it needs something more or to change tell me, Mentioned Jack Fenton, Mentioned Paulina Sanchez, Nobody knows AU, The Accident, genderbend Danny Fenton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22788223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autophile/pseuds/Autophile
Summary: Good news. She managed to catch herself by throwing her weight towards the wall.Bad news. There was an on/off buttons on the wall inside the Hole and she hit the on button.Why were those buttons inside the thing?
Relationships: Clockwork & Danny Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Maddie Fenton, Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton
Series: Of Course It Hurts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638295
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	Burn, Burn Out, Come Back Again (This Is Just The Beginning)

_“Do you realize the price for what you are asking Madeline? Just because we are old doesn’t mean you are not going to pay it.”_

_“I know.”_

_“The price is going to be heavy.”_

_“I know, Donna.”_

_“I gave you permission to ask for three things. The first thing you asked was advice on how to make Jack Fenton fall in love with you and for that you gave me an important family heirloom which caused your mother to not talk to you for years after you told her you lost it. The second thing you asked was a plan to ensure that Jasmine was going to have a happy and good life and for that you sacrificed a job opportunity with your mortal government leading to monetary problems and raising the difficulty of surviving._

_When you called me here I thought you were going to make the same deal for your second child. Not ask me to give you the plans for something that is going to change the flow of history.”_

_“You said that if you were to do this you would take Danny after she dies! She doesn’t even have to know about this deal. From what you said she is not going to live to see her 30 birthday anyway. This way I get the plans for the Ghost Portal which cuts the time that is going to take us to create in half, make sure that Danny is gonna be okay after she dies and you get a child like you always wanted. Everyone is happy.”_

_“Listen. It’s not that I don’t want to accept the deal. All I am saying is that you better be sure because there is no going back after the deal is made.”_

_“I am certain.”_

_“Maybe talk about it with Jack.”_

_“There is no need.”_

_“Really?”_

_“Really.”_

_“Very well. I, Donna Temple, agree to give to you, Madeline Fenton, the blueprints of the Ghost Portal you want to build in exchange for your second child, Danielle Fenton, who is going to come under my guardianship after she dies.”_

* * *

“I don’t understand why they are so stuck on this. The “window to the afterlife” didn’t work. No surprise really. It’s not even the first time it happened. They need to stop acting as if somebody died.”

Danny had grown tired of listening to her sister go on for the last five days about how ridiculous she though all this was. Reaching for the milk, she couldn’t help but think that Jazz needed to spend more time with their parents.

“They have been working on that thing since before you were born, Jazz. To them, that Hole in the Wall is one of their children.”

“All I am saying is that they shouldn’t have taken it this hard. It’s not as if it is their first failure. They should do what I did after my many cooking failures. Give it up. Try something new.”

To say that Jack and Maddie Fenton didn’t take this failure well would be an understatement. Their father had created a routine for himself consisting of going to the bathroom, going to the kitchen to make fudge, take the fudge that was made earlier and eat it in front of the TV and repeat. His wife on the other hand was in a state of denial. She spent almost all 24 fours of the day and the night in the lab on the non-functioning Hole in the Wall Where the Family’s Happiness Dies In.

Jazz’s comments, of course didn’t help. The moment their parent’s invention failed, the red-haired went on to monologue on how of course it didn’t work because ghosts are not real and couldn’t her parents “give up on this supernatural nonsense? Wouldn’t it be better if [they] focused [their] genius on something else and create something that [would] contribute to society?”

“Jazz?”

His sister looked up from her book, philosophy being her latest obsession, and turned towards the younger girl.

“Yes, Danny?”

“Do everyone a favor and open a book on psychology. Maybe it will help you understand why 20 years going down the drain is different to finding out that you should avoid cooking for your entire life.”

“When you put it like that, their behavior almost seems rational.”

* * *

Danny walked down the stairs towards the lab, dressed in her suit and a pink box in her hands. She could hear her mom mattering at herself “I am doing everything right. Followed the instructions correctly. Placed everything were it should go. Amount of ectoplasm is right. Why doesn’t it work?”

Things were bad. Good thing she came prepared. She knocked on the door three times like her parents taught her.

First knock. You can interact with the physical world.

Second knock. You are not here by accident.

Third knock. Speak up. Make sure to reveal you are not one of the dead.

Danny smiled. “Hey mom. Brought you some food and health…things”

Maddie looked up at the voice and leaned back at her chair. This was promising to be entertaining. “Hygiene items.”

“Whatever. I am not good with English.”

A chuckle. A promising start.

“You liar. You are better at English than Physics. You just don’t like it as much.”

Having set the box on a desk next to her, Danny stood up straight and put on her best salesman impression.

“Are you a female scientist who feels that she has failed?

Have you spend days locked away from human company and have forgotten to take care of yourself?

Was the last time you had an actual meal and not just granola bars with five cups of coffee?”

After receiving a nod, she slapped her hand on the box. “Then this bad boy was made for you. Literally.” She opened it and started bringing its contents out.

“You can see here your favorite shampoo and conditioner because I bet your hair has been in the hood of your jumpsuit for longer than you have been down here. I am not gonna go into detail here but your hair is probably called the same thing as the latest Rapunzel movie, so here is a hairbrush. And of course aloe me to tell you, I didn’t forget about body wash!

The rest of your… health thingies are here, your toothbrush and toothpaste. Mom you need to smile more because tooth to be told I love it when you do.

And ah! What have I grabbed? Oh nothing more than the fluffy bathrobe you got as a mother’s day gift from your children seven years ago! What a comfy and warm memory!

But what do we have here? Take a guess! That’s right a change of clothes and your favorite red lipstick! Perfect for the self matte woman!

Of course I brought food with me. I present salad and chicken. Now, don’t get mad, I know that you want us to eat healthy, but mum, while I was out grocery shopping a chocolate bar looked at me and Snickers.”

Maddie now was grinning, the papers she had in front of her ignored. “Oh, Danny! You are such a sweet girl. Coming here to make sure your mummy is ok!”

Now Danny would have said something in return except her mother decided that the perfect response to this thoughtful gesture was to chock the life out of her daughter with a hug.

“M..Mo..m”

“Ops! I am sorry sweetie.”

While the teenager was trying to catch her breath, the Fenton matriarch grabbed everything she needed and headed for the lab’s bathroom. “I will freshen up quickly, eat and go back to work.”

When Danny realized what she said, she run quickly and barely managed to get in front of her before she reached the door. “Mom the point of this entire show was for you to get out of the lab, out of the house and take dad with you.”

“I can’t.”

“Listen. I get it. This is your oldest and most important project ever-“

“You don’t understand.” Maddie set everything back down and moved to stand in front of the Ghost Viewing Device. Letting out a sigh, she kept talking as she stared into the abyss thinking about everything that was lost into this project. “Neither you, nor Jazz do. To you two this is an obsession but it is more than that. This is what would finally make people take paranormal sciences, take your father and I seriously in our studies of ghosts. At least, that is what it was in the beginning. Now it is about the sacrifices. I am not talking about the time or the money or the effort. I am talking about all the trips we didn’t go, all the family game and movie nights that stopped happening because of it, all of the meals we didn’t eat with you, all the visits to the fair and to the amusement park, all the time we could have spent visiting my mother and sister. I am talking about all the sacrifices that cost you, girls, time with your parents.”

Danny understood more than her mother believed she did. Like many adults Maddie Fenton fell into the trap of believing that her teenage children were so absorbed with their “insignificant teenage drama” and their “ever constant body changes and new self-discoveries” that they didn’t pay attention to anything else. Maybe it would have been true if she had been speaking about Sam or Tucker or Paulina, who were, at best, friends of the family. Maybe even Jazz. But Danny? When the building of the Window started she was eight and, in her opinion, that thing stole her parents from her. There was nothing in the world she hated more than her parents’ college project.

“And then there is everything else. Your sister has lost all respect for us. She believes we are insane and have abandoned you two. My mother believes me to be a waste of potential and blames your father for it. She still calls to convince about taking you, Danny, away from us. And you, sweetie. You are getting bullied and ostracized because you believe us. And don’t lie and say it’s not true. Jazz talked.”

She was half right on that. Danny earned being called freak by everyone in the town during kindergarten. People still remembered hearing about little Danielle Fenton running to her teachers with tears in her eyes and demanding they bring her parents there because the monsters only she could see wanted to hurt her. And later of Jack and Maddie being called in, due to her drawings of the lab, the experiments and the inventions were considered “disturbing and worrying”. Or teachers wondering how and why Danny knows all this scary ghost stories and her not understanding because she thought that all little kids got warned about strangers and ghosts. She remembered people being upset with her and her not knowing what she did wrong. She remembered an entire class of children saying “I don’t want to play with her. She is so weird. She is a freak.”

She was still hurt by Paulina saying that she was sorry but she couldn’t invite her to any sleepover parties anymore because the other girls were freaked out by her.

But Danny did not believe her parents stories anymore. Despite the fact that she had more ghost encounters than both of her parents together, she did not believe. In a few weeks, Jazz would say that she did it because she wanted to earn the approval of her peers. Danny will tell her to shut up.

Since the young Fenton couldn’t exactly tell all that to her mom, she cursed Jazz for not being able to stay out of her business.

Maddie looked away from the Window and turned to stare at her daughter’s eyes. Her extremely bright, blue eyes. Not many people did that. People who had never met Danny or an actually blind person before always assumed she couldn’t see. But when they did meet her they realized that not only did Danny see everything around them, see saw too much. She looked away a moment later. If she stared for more she would have a breakdown.

“I have paid a very heavy price for this Danny. It has to work.”

There was no changing her mind. Maybe her kids were right. Maybe she was obsessed. But if they had done what she had done for this project then they would have been obsessed too.

“Ok. Ok. Listen. You can keep working on it but tomorrow. Today, just for one day, go out in town with dad. He has been eating only fudge and staring at the TV these days.”

She was still hesitating.

“Maybe a break will do you good. Isn’t that what you say to Jazz? To take a break when she meets a wall or else she’ll break her head?”

* * *

After seeing her parents out of the house and extracting the promise of them staying out of the house for at least three hours, Danny decided she was going to spend her day in front of the TV. Oversized t-shirt, soda, popcorn and terrible horror movies. It was a good way to relax after everything.

Ding!

_ TooFine invites you into a video group chat with GothPlantMom. Do you accept? _

Grinning she taps on the yes. On the screen appeared her two best friends. One of the benefits of being the daughter of two mad scientists was that you got phone upgrades other people could only wish for.

“Hey guys! How are you?”

“Girls, this place is great! I am so glad I listened to mum’s nagging and came. Tech Camp is cool. They teach some very interesting stuff and currently they have us working on building up a mini racing car. We are going to go on the annual summer race with it!”

“How are you going to mange that? Tech Camp, if I remember correctly, ends at the end of July.” Wondered Sam

“Oh, yeah! I didn’t tell you. I’ll be staying here for August as well.”

“I guess it’s gonna be just me and Sam then.”

“Actually I am not coming back either. Uncle Michael revealed that his wife is pregnant and so after Paris we are going to stay with them for a month.”

This sounded weird to Danny. Why would they need to do that? Maybe all pregnant women needed family with them during the first month? Did Aunt Alicia come to stay with them like the Mansons were going to stay with the sister-in-law? Tucker was as confused as she was. “Why?”

“Because they believe she is a gold digger and grandma agrees. Anyway. Danny what are you doing?”

“Hiding in my house until Dash leaves the city. Paulina left a few days earlier and with her she took her protection. He is taking this as his chance to “teach me my place”. Is everyone except me going to leave Amity this summer?”

“Apparently.”

“Don’t complain. It could be worse. I wish we could trade places. I am stuck with my parents in a country whose language I don’t know and most of its people don’t speak English. I can’t do anything but stick with my parents unless I want to get lost.”

“Eh… Hello? Doesn’t your phone have GPS and internet access?”

“Yeah, girl, it does. Sam over there has one of the best phones on the market.”

“My phone has been confiscated because I brought only dark clothes with me.”

“Your parents are not taking this Goth thing well are they?”

“Nope.”

From out view a female voice was heard. “Sammikins! Come on! We are going to be late for dinner at the restaurant!”

“Got to go. Bye guys!” and with that she closed her line.

“Yeah I am going to say goodbye too, Danny. I just wanted to check on you. Text after dinner?”

“Kay. Bye.” Danny sighed and melted on the couch.

This was promising to be the worst summer of her short life. All the people she could have spend it with miles and miles (or in Sam’s case kilometers and kilometers) away.

Paulina was her friend since they were five. She was the new girl in town and there weren’t any other Latinos in Amity so she stood out a lot. The other children had taken to making fun of her for a lot of reasons, mostly because of things taught to them by their parents or the TV. Danny, who had never been taught to pay attention to those things, decided that she wanted to be friends with the girl. Currently their relationship could only be described as complicated. Paulina was popular. An A-lister. A group of rich, beautiful and athletic kids who used whatever power they had to stay on top of everyone else. Danny had tried to give being an A-lister a go. She had been one for seven months, thanks to Paulina, until she decided she couldn’t stand it. She wasn’t made for it. She was too nerdy and geeky and awkward and she liked being so. Not that she told Paulina that. Her friend believed that Danny could be popular and the blame for why she wasn’t laid on Sam Manson’s feet “who had poisoned [her] poor Danny with her dark magic”.

Sam was one of her more recent friends. The girls met after Sam had to change schools because she got kicked out of her old one. She took a shine to Danny and became fond of her quickly. She loved how different she was to everybody else. The stories people said about the young Fenton convinced her that she had found someone like her. “A child of darkness”, as she took to calling them. She was both happy and disappointed when she realized that while the stories were based on facts and a lot of them were true Danny wasn’t like her. But that didn’t change Sam’s opinion that she had found something good with Danny. That this girl was worth fighting for. So it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that she had declared war on Paulina. Every time the other girl said something along the lines of her poisoning Danny, Sam answered with “You are the one who poisoned her. You are after all the one who convinced her that she had to give up a part of herself in order to fit in.”

Danny and Tucker hadn’t been friends for as long as she and Paulina but the difference was only a year. Their friendship was based on their shared interest on technology, video games and everything Paulina wasn’t willing to do with Danny. He was the only person who understood that her interest in her parents’ inventions came from her wish to go to space. He would spend huge amounts of time listening to her parents’ because “while their ghost obsession is nonsense their tech’s a dream”. Tucker also believed that Danny, despite her weirdness, was actually one of the coolest people he knew. It didn’t really make sense to Danny and she didn’t know how to bring it up without looking like an idiot so she just accepted it. He was also the first person she came out to as a lesbian. To this day he is still her favorite response to it. He just got this serious look on his face and said “Who do you think is prettier in Rulers of the Sun? If you say Anne, we are going to have to talk about your taste in my opposite gender.” How could she not stick with him for as long as possible after that?

“Danny! I am going to the library!”

“What do I care?”

“Shut up!”

* * *

After the first movie ended, she got up and started making way for the kitchen in order to refill her bowl of snacks. Or she would have, had it not been for the girl standing in her way. The floating, glowing green, dead girl standing in her way.

_How did she get in here?_

The girl’s hair was white and her eyes glowed ectoplasm green. Her skin was pale and clear, almost see through. Her bones could be seen if one focused on the parts of her body that weren’t covered by her plain, black dress. Her makeup (eyeliner and mascara) glowed the same green as her eyes. Danny had no idea if the makeup made the girl’s eyes look bigger or if they were naturally that big and she didn’t care to find out.

_What about the shields?_

Along with her, the ghost girl had brought a bunch of animals. Ghost animals. Butterflies, bees, crows, ravens and pigeons were flying around them and above them. Some came very close to Danny making her want to take cover under the table. But that wasn’t an option since on the ground cats and dogs made out of mist were laying or prowling around them. The animals, except for the insects, seemed to be watching her, Danny, not the ghost.

_Where is my phone?_

It was silent while they had their little stare off but then the other girl opened her mouth and started screaming. Her scream was so loud that it forced Danny to fall on the ground and cover her ears. The animals around them disappeared. If they left to escape or if they were destroyed she would never find out. She didn’t take her eyes off the strange entity in her house. Danny was so focused on the ghost that she didn’t notice that the screaming stopped. On the other hand she did notice the girl moving.

“Where are you going?”

Danny didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. Ghosts were dangerous and should be avoided at all ghosts. She had learned it the hard way. But she couldn’t allow one to freely roam the house.

_She’s going to the lab._

Danny run after the girl. Whatever happened, the ghost must not gain access to the lab. Her mum and dad were already in a bad mental situation with what was going down in the lab. If it actually got destroyed they would not come back from it the same. Danny hoped she was just being dramatic. She followed the green glow down the stairs but when she reached the bottom she didn’t see the ghost. This did not calm her down since invisibility was one of their powers.

She grabbed an ectogun and surveyed the room. Fortunately her parents’ paranoia had forced her to learn how to handle their weapons correctly so there was one worry off her shoulders. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance. Everything was as she had left it two hours ago. Even the pink box was there. But as she was about to lower the gun and go back up, Danny noticed some green light coming from inside the Hole.

She shouldn’t go in, especially not without her jumpsuit, but she also she couldn’t let anything happening to the Window. Not that it made a lot of difference. There wasn’t much time for her to get in her jumpsuit anyways. She also couldn’t just fire blindly in the Hole with the hope that one of the shots would hit the ghost, as it would leave a lot of damage behind. She could in theory go up and call her parents but that would mean leaving the ghost unsupervised. Maybe the Fenton Ghost Exodus could drive the ghost away, if it worked, but Danny couldn’t see it and didn’t feel safe enough to go looking for it.

The banging sound coming from the inside of the Hole made the decision for her.

Gun up. One step in. It was dark and cold and she was barefoot wearing only a shirt.

“I’m armed with something that can hurt you.”

Three steps in. It was even darker and there was no light. That didn’t mean there was no ghost.

Keep going. You are playing pretend. You are a space traveler and there is an enemy in your spaceship.

“Leave and I won’t hurt you.”

Five steps in. She could see nothing. How did her parents work in the dark? Right. High-tech jumpsuits. Like the white and black one that she should be wearing.

If mum and dad find out about this they are going to be so mad. No. Focus on the ghost.

“Reveal yourself.”

Seven steps in.

Is the ghost even here anymore? Am I talking to empty space?

And then, in a classic Danny Fenton move, Danny tripped.

Good news. She managed to catch herself by throwing her weight towards the wall.

Bad news. There was an on/off buttons on the wall inside the Hole and she hit the on button.

Why were those buttons inside the thing?

The air around her started feeling heavy. Danny oddly enough wasn’t panicking. Or maybe she was frozen with so much fear that she couldn’t realize she was scared. Or she just hadn’t fully realized the danger she was in. She didn’t know.

(This was a feeling that would follow her for the rest of her existence. This oddly, calm state of panic and fear were she was convinced that everything was going to be alright despite the fact that everything was not great.

Is this what destiny feels like, Father Time?)

Soon she was bathed in green light similar to that of the ghost girl’s. She turned to look at the source fearing that the ghost she had forgotten was back. Instead she found herself looking at a galaxy. Mesmerized she extended her hand towards it.

And then, then everything hurt and Danny forgot all but the pain.

A being wearing a purple cloak carried young Danny Fenton, who survived the opening of the portal but also didn’t, and set her down on the couch in front of the TV. Brushing their hand through the girl’s hair the Master of Time whispered “May we meet soon daughter.”

Before they left for their tower Clockwork left a message for Madeline Fenton. “Everything is the way it is supposed to be, old friend.-Donna Temple”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of my Genderbend Dany Fenton AU whcih begun purely out of an "What was gonna happen if Danny was a girl?" and then got mixed with some of my other headcannons and AUs. I don't know if I am going to continue this but it has been sitting in my files for months so take it.
> 
> By the way please tell me how many of you guessed that Donna Temple was in fact Clockwork.
> 
> Also sorry for any mistakes English is not my first language.
> 
> Come talk to me on Tumblr.


End file.
